Mayank Chandak

“Yoga is the teacher of yoga; yoga is to be understood through yoga. So live in yoga to realize yoga; comprehend yoga through yoga; he who is free from distractions enjoys yoga through yoga.”
― B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: The Essential Handbook of Pranayama, Asana, and Hindu Meditation

“Action is movement with intelligence. The world is filled with movement. What the world needs is more conscious movement, more action.”
― B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life

“Consciousness is imbued with the three qualities (gunas) of luminosity (sattva), vibrancy (rajas) and inertia (tamas). The gunas also colour our actions: white (sattva), grey (rajas) and black (tamas). Through the discipline of yoga, both actions and intelligence go beyond these qualities and the seer comes to experience his own soul with crystal clarity, free from the relative attributes of nature and actions. This state of purity is samadhi. Yoga is thus both the means and the goal. Yoga is samadhi and samadhi is yoga. There”
― B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: The Essential Handbook of Pranayama, Asana, and Hindu Meditation

“So we would say in yoga that the subtle precedes the gross, or spirit precedes matter. But yoga says we must deal with the outer or most manifest first, i.e. legs, arms, spine, eyes, tongue, touch, in order to develop the sensitivity to move inward. This is why asana opens the whole spectrum of yoga’s possibilities. There can be no realization of existential, divine bliss without the support of the soul’s incarnate vehicle, the food-and-water-fed body, from bone to brain. If we can become aware of its limitations and compulsions, we can transcend them. We all possess some awareness of ethical behavior, but in order to pursue yama and niyama at deeper levels, we must cultivate the mind. We need contentment, tranquility, dispassion, and unselfishness, qualities that have to be earned. It is asana that teaches us the physiology of these virtues.”
― B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom